for forty days and forty
nights, and they are swept away as the waves dash against them. The
statesmen and astronomers and great men call for mercy; but it is too
late. They had disobeyed the God of mercy. He had called, and they
refused. He had plead with them, but they had laughed and mocked. But
now the time is come for judgment instead of mercy.

Judgment.

The time is coming again when God will deal in judgment with the
world. It is but a little while; we know not when, but it is sure to
come. God's word has gone forth that this world shall be rolled
together like a scroll, and shall be on fire. What then will become of
your soul? It is a loving call, "Now come, thou and all thy house,
into the ark." Twenty four hours before the rain began to fall, Noah's
ark, if it had been sold at auction, would not have brought as much as
it would be worth for kindling wood. But twenty four hours after the
rain began to fall, Noah's ark was worth more than all the world.
There was not then a man living but would have given all he was worth
for a seat in the ark. You may turn away and laugh.

"I believe in Christ!" you say; "I would rather be without Him than
have Him."

But bear in mind, the time is coming when Christ will be worth more to
you than ten thousand worlds like this. Bear in mind that He is
offered to you now. This is a day of grace; it is a day of mercy. You
will find, if you read your Bible carefully, that God always precedes
judgment with grace. Grace is a forerunner of judgment. He called
these men in the days of Noah in love. They would have been saved if
they had repented in those one hundred and twenty years. When Christ
came to plead with the people in Jerusalem, it was their day of grace;
but they mocked and laughed at Him. He said: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto
thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a
hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Forty
years afterward, thousands of the people begged that their lives might
be spared; and eleven hundred thousand perished in that city.

In 1857 a revival swept over this country in the east and on to the
western cities, clear over to the Pacific coast. It was God calling
the nation to Himself. Half a million people united with the Church at
that time. Then the war broke out. We were baptized with the Holy
Ghost in 1857, and in 1861 we were baptiz